Advisory Board

​GBX Summits ™ works in conjunction with some of the world's most prominent leaders and visionaries across a variety of key industries in order to produce cutting edge programmes that simulate, educate and accelerate innovation.

Behzad MahdaviVP Strategic Innovation & Alliances​Lonza

Kevin DugganFounder​Institute for Operational Excellence

Behzad Mahdavi (Vice President of Strategic Innovation & Alliances at Lonza, one of the world's leading suppliers to the Pharma&Biotech and Specialty Ingredient markets) started his current position in 2010 after 3 years serving as Head of Lonza Canada. Prior joining Lonza he was CEO of SAM Electron Technologies, a venture capital backed company in Life Sciences field, which has been acquired in 2007 by a multinational company. During his entire career, he worked for several privates, governmental companies and Venture Capitals in different capacities as senior executive, advisor, CEO and board member leading, managing and advising technological start-ups/companies in fund raising, strategic business development, efficient innovation management and commercialization/spinoff to create new profitable growth axis. He earned his MBA from the University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada, his Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of Sherbrooke, Canada, his MS in Industrial Chemicals & Environment from the University of Rennes, France and his BSc in Chemical Engineering from ENSCR, France.

Dr. Uwe GottschalkChief Technology Officer Pharma/BiotechLonza

​Dr. Gottschalk is Group Vice President, Purification Technologies, with a global responsibility for bioseparation products at Sartorius Stedim Biotech. He worked in different capacities for Bayer Health Care from 1991-2004 and became head of the GMP protein purification facility in Wuppertal.

Thomas HergetHead Technology OfficeMerck KGaA

​Prof. Dr. Thomas Herget is currently Head of Processing Technologies within the Merck Millipore process solutions division of Merck KGaA, where he develops new methods and materials for bioprocessing. He is also a medical professor at the University of Mainz and a biochemistry professor at the TU Darmstadt. He has received several awards, submitted 25 patents and authored more than 50 peer-reviewed papers. From 2004-2010, Prof. Dr. Thomas Herget served as the Director, New Technology Evaluation within Merck KGaA’s Chemicals R&D division. In that role, he ran laboratories in Darmstadt (Germany) and oversaw the R&D activities of Novagen (Madison) and Calbiochem (San Diego). In 2000, he joined the Munich-based Axxima Pharmaceuticals AG (now GPC Biotech), a biotech startup founded by Prof. Axel Ullrich, to focus on the development of protein kinase inhibitors in infectious diseases. ​

Expert with over twenty years’ experience teaching and guiding companies through the principles of Operational Excellence. Through Duggan Associates, I work with global firms in a variety of industries on training and implementation projects.As the Founder of IOE, I produce live training events, webinars, online courses, videos and many other resources to help the public achieve OpEx. Author of four award-winning and best-selling books on applying advanced lean techniques to achieve Operational Excellence.Frequent contributor to industry publications and speaker on OpEx.

​Dr. Eric Perakslis joins Precision for Medicine as Senior Advisor, Bioinformatics and Information Technology. He will provide strategic and scientific guidance to the Precision leadership team in the development, acquisition, and execution of products and services in the rapidly evolving field of bioinformatics and health information technology. The addition of Dr. Perakslis expands and enhances our ability to support life science innovators in the development and commercialization of next generation medicines. In addition to his role at Precision, Dr. Perakslis serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics and the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Prior to joining Harvard, ​

Louis BoonChief Scientific OfficerBioceros​

​Dr. Boon received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Amsterdam. He also carried out post-doctoral positions at University of Amsterdam at the Department of Anatomy and Embryology and at the Department of Clinical Epidemiology. Thereafter he was one of the founders of PanGenetics where he was responsible for project management and animal studies. Since the merger between PanGenetics and Tanox Inc. in Houston, he had the position of VP Preclinical in which he was world-wide responsible for preclinical safety assessments and animals studies for the Tanox group. Dr. Boon has performed antibody therapy for immunoinflammatory diseases both in murine and non-human primate disease models and healthy non-human primates. Thereafter Dr. Boon was one of the founders of MacroZyme BV and for 2 years Director of Preclinical R&D of MacroZyme BV, where he was responsible for a small molecule project in the metabolic field and various potential protein-based therapeutic molecules. In 2003 he was one of the founders of Bioceros BV where he currently holds a position of Chief Scientific Officer (CSO). In addition he held a position as CSO for 4AZA Bioscience NV and VP Preclinical (ad interim) for PanGenetics BV until the end of 2006. He has extensive experience in molecular and cellular immunology and in therapeutic antibody development and has been involved in the trajectory of preclinical preparation and design of First into Man studies using therapeutic antibodies. Dr. Boon is author/co-author of over 200 papers in international scientific journals in the field of medical biotechnology.